, 1887-07-23
WAR RECORDS OFFICE.
WHERE THE WRITERS OF WAR ARTf-
Giles GO FOR INSPIRATION.


Mnde o: Them-History in a False
Light.
The place where "war "reminiscences" are
made is here in Washington. 1t is a little
square graystone building on G street. Amy
sort Of war "Reminiscences that is wanted can
be bad their on very short notice. The war
articles that appear in such numbers in popu-
lar magazines and newspapers, written b.
great generals and privates with wonderful
recollections, come in part or in full from
this place. II a general of either army is
called upon by The Century, or some other
popular periodical, to write his recollections
of the war, he repairs at once to this place to
gather up his recollections. 1t is a sort of
magic cell which awakens tagging memory
and corrects popular fallacies. Gen. Wal
lace, Gen. Beauregard, Col. Allen, Gen.
Corse, Gen. Smith and Gen. Sherman all go
there to put ON their thinking caps; or, when
they do not so in person, they write for in
formation. This great weakener of ~recollec-
tions is the war records office. The amount of
information they have collected is almost in
conceivable. Many old war veterans go
there and search out the old documents before
writing the history of what they saw. 1t is
astonishing how often they are forced by tho
cold, dried and well preserved facts to discard
pet notions about how things were, and are
obliged 10 revise their impressions about
things with which they had thought them
selves entirely familiar.
Frequently officers of the two opposing
armies, who have led the charge against each
others forces, have met here for the first time
to know each other. Each looking at the
battle or the maneuver from a different stand
point, they come to look over the records TO
see how it really was. There is no chance for
any quarrel about it. There Is no room for
any exaggeration. The records are right at
hand to sustain the truth or to brand a fallacy.
Generally, both men find that their impress
sions were not quite right. Facts make friends;
so they soon become cordial. There have
been some remarkable meetings here of men
who have fought hard face to face, but never
met before. All who have met this way have
become friends. They sit and talk the whole
thing over, correct each others errors of
memory, or are both set right by the record.
Sherman, Sheridan, Be~auregard, Hunt, Wal
lace, Long and the younger Lees have met
there. Sherman has drawn largely upon
these records in some of his writings. Gen.
Grant, while writing his book, was in con-
slant communication with Gen. Marcus j,
Wright, who does the work of collecting the
Confederate records. A large amount of the
matter in the book was got in this way. He
also furnished to the office and
corrected some erroneous statements made.
JEDI Davis has drawn upon this source for in
formation for use in his book. Gen. Wright
has in his possession a letter book filed with
nothing but letters from Grant and Davis
upon the same subjects.
Strange to say, JEFF Davis was among the
very first to respond TO the call of the govern
ment for official papers of the Confederacy.
He sent all his papers cheerfully as soon as
he received tie request. When the work of
On1lartfn1 tho ,.aNnrla ,-,. G..a ----
thought that they would never be able to get
enough of the Confederate papers to make
the record complete; but for nine years now
Gen. Wright has been writing to the surviv-
ing Confederate officers, or the families of
officers who were killed, and he has succeeded
in collecting fully as complete q record of the
Confederate army os is had of the Federal.
All letters or orders written by officials or
officers of the army during the war that re-
late at all to the subject of the war are col
lected and compiled and printed without edit
ing. When the work is all done there will
have TO beanother history of the war written
from these records. Many things that have
been accepted as truths will be proved by
these records to be absolutely false. They
will show that officers on both sides have
been overestimated and that other officers
have never got the credit that was due them.
There is q sort of halo of romance sur
rounding all the battles that puts history in a
false light. Officers in writing reports OF
battles, under the excitement of the time,
have often fallen into tie error of exagger-
ating the enemy's forces. One very popular
error which has been corrected by these
records is with relation to the first battle of
Bull Run. 1t has always been believed that
the Federal forces on that occasion greatly
outnumbered the Confederates. IL has gone
into history so. In the north, as well as in
the south, it has been accepted as a fact not
to be disputed, and the northern people have
always felt a little sheme that their large
army should have been defeated by so much
smaller force of Confederates. These records
bring to light the fact that there was not q
difference of 900 men between the strength
of the two armies, and of those actually en-
gagged in the battle, the Confederates had
within 500 of as many men as the Federals.
There are a number of other cases where the
odds of battle have been accepted as very
heavy when such was not the case, and there
are the expositions of plans and purposes
that throw an entirely new light on the his
tory.-Washington Star.